Vanity case

Monday 4 September 2000 23:00 BST

Perhaps the biggest single error in an entire gallery of blunders made by this woeful production of Oscar Wilde's cautionary novel was the decision to transfer it from the sleepy setting of a quiet West London fringe venue to the faded grandeur of this forgotten West End theatre. Magnified by the location, it is revealed as an artless depiction of an otherwise profound meditation on the nature of art. Ronald Selwyn Phillips digs himself a theatrical grave with his plodding adaptation of a novel in which some of Wilde's wittiest one-liners are rendered flat-footed with literalising, sentimental affectation.

Christian Deal, as the young man who sells his soul for eternal youth, entirely travesties Wilde's tragic hero. Full of earnest conviction he may be, but the bloom of his youth has long since passed and the rapier wit of Wilde's aphorising is blunted by his thick Mediterranean accent.

Perhaps it was this that caused David Evans Rees to despair with his sloppy, melodramatic direction, but there might at least have been something to look at in Elaine Horwood's shabby design. On top of this, the parading of Dorian's portrait of exquisite youth turned to terrible monstrosity is only a source of laughable bathos.

You are therefore forced to feel sorry for a cast desperate to maintain their dignity in the face of artistic adversity - only to find the leading man trampling on their lines. Luckily, Miles Richardson has the opportunity to distinguish himself in the choric role of Lord Henry Wotton, because most of his lines are delivered to the audience.

However, his gloriously conceited performance has the sort of Wildean lash that needs to be turned on the production itself to whip it into shape. Instead, Wilde's parable of tragic narcissism is allowed to bear all the hallmarks of a clumsy, vanity production - reproducing the very folly it is intended to lament.